Page 20 RAIN November/December 1985 A resident of Santa Cruz demonstrating the use ofa newly developed rope pump (Photo by Mira Brown) ogy (CITA) is on what used to be one of the many farms owned by a Somocista, a wealthy political ally of the ruling Somoza family. He and some of the other owners of large haciendas fled the country in 1979, when the Sandinistas defeated Somoza. Their land was confiscated by the new government, and much of it has now been titled over to more than 65,000 peasant families who were formerly landless. CITA is officially part of MIDINRA, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Agrarian Reform. The center is charged with the development of technologies that will improve the productivity and the livelihoods of small- and medium-scale farmers. Philosophically committed to the "revalidation of the indigenous wisdom" of these farmers, CITA works with peasant cooperatives, trade unions, and with UNAG, the National Union of Farmers and Ranchers (an organization of private farmers). With funding from the Dutch and West German governments, CITA has a broad range of projects, including agricultural and construction techniques and energy conversion. The rope pump in use today in the village of Santa Cruz is one of several water pumping technologies CITA has worked on. From the foot of one of CITA's new windpumps, you can see some of the houses in the village of Santa Cruz. Many of the families in this area have wells, providing drinking water and a bit of irrigation (this makes them relatively affluent compared to some areas of the country). People raise water from the wells with buckets. If you ask anyone from town about this task, they'll tell you that it's hard, tedious work—some of the wells are quite deep, up to 60 feet or so. And then they'll probably tell you that the buckets get holes in them—from banging on the sides of the well—and need to be replaced about every six months. The cost of the bucket is a big bite out of a rural family's income. Looking for a solution to this problem, one of the technicians at CITA built a rope-pump, modifying a design he'd found in a book. A wooden wheel, about 18 inches in diameter, is mounted on a crank above the well. A long loop of rope goes around the wooden wheel, down into the well, into the water, and back up. One leg of the rope comes up through a plastic pipe. Every meter or so on the rope there is a rubber disk, that is just a hair smaller in diameter than the pipe. The disks are cut out of old tires and held in place with knots. When the crank is turned, the wheel is turned, pulling the rope and the disks up through the pipe, bringing a column of water with them. It's a very simple pump. The test pump was installed at the house of a worker at CITA who lived down the hill in the village. It turned out to be much easier and faster than using a bucket.
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